Once our ancestors began cooking their food, the brain began to grow, and time once spent chewing tough raw food could be used instead to hunt and to tend camp. Cooking became the basis for pair bonding and marriage, and even led to a sexual division of labour.
Tracing the contemporary implications of our ancestors’ diets, this stunningly original theory of human evolution sheds new light on how we came to be the social, intelligent and sexual species we are today.
Authoritative, provocative, and engaging, The Goodness Paradox offers a startlingly original theory of how humankind became an increasingly peaceful species in daily interactions even as its capacity for coolly planned and devastating violence remains undiminished. In tracing the evolutionary histories of reactive and proactive aggression, Wrangham forcefully and persuasively argues for the necessity of social tolerance and control of the divisive savagery still haunting us today.